Police Chief Diggs to step down at end of Bell’s term

Citing “irreconcilable differences in policing philosophy” with Mayor-elect D. Michael Collins, Toledo Police Chief Derrick Diggs has said he will retire at the end of Mayor Mike Bell’s term.

Diggs notified Bell and the executive staff of the police department of the decision on Dec. 12. His final day with the department will be Jan. 2.

“The chief will take the opportunity to pursue other professional law enforcement opportunities giving the Mayor-elect the opportunity to appoint a chief with whom he shares the same approach to policing strategy for Toledo,” according to a news release from the Bell administration.

TPD: Human remains found may be Baby Elaina

No official identification has been made, but officials believe the human remains recovered from an East Toledo garage could be those of 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth, Toledo Police Chief Derrick Diggs said at a news conference Sept. 6.

The “immature human skeletal remains” were seized Sept. 5 from the rafters of a detached garage at the house on Federal Street where Elaina was last seen June 2.

The Lucas County coroner is performing an autopsy today, Diggs said, and will be working with the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation over the weekend to determine the sex, cause of death and identity of the remains using DNA analysis.

Officials said the garage had been searched in the past, but declined to comment on what prompted them to search the garage Sept. 5. A search warrant for the property at 704 Federal St., was executed at 3:16 p.m. Sept. 5.

A box containing the remains was discovered on a shelf in the rafters of the garage “behind quite a bit of other … boxes, trash, things of that nature,” said Capt. Brad Weis, commander of the Toledo Police Department’s strategic response bureau.

In response to a question about TPD’s handling of the case, Diggs defended his department.

“We didn’t drop the ball,” Diggs said. “The main thing that you have to remember — there are two things. No. 1, we wanted to find the body. We wanted to find that baby, which we did. No. 2, we want to bring justice for Elaina which means that we are going to cont to pursue our investigation and do the things we need to do to make sure the people responsible for this are held accountable.”

Diggs and the other officials declined to answer most questions, citing an ongoing investigation.

“We’re not going toget into all this how many times we checked here, how many times we checked that,” Diggs said. “We had a lot of deception taking place, being told to us, by a variety of sources in this community, and because of that we took the investigation where we felt we needed to take it.

“The bottom line is, we found what we believe may be Baby Elaina,” Diggs added.

Elaina’s mother, Angela Steinfurth, and Steinfurth’s ex-boyfriend, Steven W. King, are in jail, facing obstruction of justice charges related to the toddler’s disappearance. King’s trial date is set for Sept. 16. Steinfurth has a pretrial hearing set for Sept. 25.

TPS considers changing emergency crisis response plan

False TV reports that a student had brought a gun to Raymer Elementary School on Feb. 15 panicked many East Toledoans, leading parents to pull more than 160 students from classes that Friday morning.

Toledo Public School (TPS) Board of Education members and administrators agree the incident highlights the need for TPS to address safety issues.

Sobecki said she asked that a safety agenda item be added to TPS’s Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) Building Committee.

Sobecki said the committee will keep safety and security “a standing item to keep board members abreast” of issues that need to be addressed.

“I want to keep it on the agenda,” Sobecki said. “We should have safety on an agenda, and we don’t currently have that on any of our committees.”

At January’s board meeting, Sobecki encouraged fellow board members to make either Superintendent Jerome Pecko or Chief Business Manager James Gant aware of any safety and security concerns board members had, so that when the two administrators met with City of Toledo fire and police chiefs in early February to discuss TPS’s emergency procedures, they could include “all that information we’ve been thinking about.”

Lisa Sobecki and Jerome Pecko

Gant said when he and Pecko met with Police Chief Derrick Diggs and Fire Chief Luis Santiago, “We talked about our process and procedures and made sure they were comfortable with them. We wanted to make sure that our communication was good … to see if they had anything they would like to add to the discussion in terms of how we could be more proactive in what we’re doing.”

Gant said a major concern the four men discussed was whether TPS’s policy, where all school building doors are locked and no one is allowed to leave or enter the building in an emergency, was the best course of action.

“We talked about how we handle active shooters and whether the lockdown procedure was an efficient method of doing that, or whether the program ALICE [Alert–Lockdown–Inform-Counter-Evacuate] would be a direction the district would like to move into,” Gant said. “Let me explain what ALICE is by example. Right now, if we have an active shooter and they get into the classroom, what we teach our kids to do, and it’s what most districts have done probably forever, is to find a location, to get down and to hide.”

A TPS elementary school teacher who asked her name not be published confirmed what Gant said.

“Fire drills are once a month, but there are no prescribed number of times [active shooter drills] have to be done,” she said. “We do one every fall, and they do that K-12. We practice with the kids. There’s a prescribed script that’s read, and every school has the same script.”

Gant said recent research indicates that the “get-down-and-hide” approach is not necessarily the best strategy.

“We want folks to be more active in the process, so we actively look for ways to escape,” Gant said. “We become active in the way we try to distract the shooter so we can eliminate any collateral damages.

“So maybe we start throwing things at the shooter. Some districts have had golf balls in buckets in the corner of every room, that type of thing, to be more active in stopping the shooter.”

Gant said ALICE is a program the district is only considering and that it will not be presented to the board for discussion or a vote Feb. 26.

“It’s something we would have to develop,” Gant said. “Part of the thought process is to get more folks involved in the training; get folks trained and make sure they’re comfortable with it. And then we would roll it out, along with the policy that goes along with it.”

Scope of safety

At January’s meeting, board member Larry Sykes encouraged Pecko and his cabinet to broaden the scope of safety and security experts they consulted to include the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

“If one of our schools goes into lockdown [because of an active shooter], I’m sure the FBI, the ATF and the rest of them potentially could come in our school,” Sykes said. “If it doesn’t happen, great. But if it does happen, we will know how to handle it, when to call them in and when not to. With hostage situations you have to have your best. And that is the FBI and the ATF.”

Sykes pointed to the fact that the Newtown, Conn., shooting Dec. 14 was the 31st school shooting in the U.S. since the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999.

“From all those, we have learned something,” Sykes said. “You have FBI profilers. You have people telling you how to watch out, how to look at stuff, what to be aware of. And that goes beyond your local police, fire and sheriff departments.

Sykes and Sobecki said before TPS would change the lockdown policy, it would seek input from taxpayers.

“Any time we change policies, we go out to the citizens,” Sykes said. “It’s good to have public input from people who have a vested interest, and that’s parents who have their children in our schools.”

Sobecki said that if TPS switched from the current lockdown policy to ALICE, it would schedule meetings to explain the changes to the public.

“There would be a time and a place to do that, but we would have to first take care of it internally,” she said. “We would have to identify the program, whether it’s ALICE or something else, what we’re going to do and make sure our top-notch professionals are trained in the new program because it will be a different philosophy.

“And after you do that, you go site by site to explain the procedures we would have for ALICE versus lockdown. But a public hearing isn’t going to the public and asking ‘Do you think it’s OK if we do ALICE or do you want something else?’

“First, we would have to educate the community about what ALICE is. And then we would take their questions to help them understand.”

The Human Resources Committee will take the cost of two background checks to the full board without a recommendation since committee members Cecilia Adams and Bob Vasquez do not agree on a course of action.

Adams predicted at the committee meeting that the board will vote 3-2 to require employees to pay for the state-mandated FBI background check and that the district will pay for the TPS-required Ohio background check, with Brenda Hill, Sobecki and Vasquez voting “yes” and Adams and Sykes voting “no.”

Sheriff Tharp: ‘It’s more than just making an arrest’

The new Lucas County sheriff isn’t afraid to arrest and book bad people. He believes in aggressively pursuing criminals — both teens and adults. He believes some people should never be released.

But John Tharp does not believe that strategy alone will curb crime.

Crime-fighting starts with crime prevention. It involves working with children who are struggling with learning or behavioral disabilities, he said. These young people feel ostracized. They can’t keep up in school; they feel defeated. So they start acting out in little ways, then big ways and finally in ways that affect everyone in society.

Tharp is as much an enforcer as he is an educator. In addition to an associate degree in law enforcement technology, he has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Toledo. He specialized in behavioral and learning disabilities.

“Education is a good fit for law enforcement. All of my friends were doing administrative degrees wanting to be police chiefs. I had no intention of being a police chief — or sheriff,” he said.

“I liked working with at-risk kids, gang members, hoodlums, thugs and young people who were going down the wrong path. I thought there has to be a better way for these kids. I kept thinking if I had more information about them, I could deal with them a little easier. I thought the wave of the future would be law enforcement interfacing more with youth, which turned out to be true.”

Tharp built his 40-year career on that philosophy and is now bringing those ideals, along with others, into his newly elected position as Lucas County sheriff. He replaces longtime Sheriff James Telb, who retired.

“The sheriff really has to be open to suggestions,” Tharp said Jan. 9, his third day on the job. “As sheriff, I don’t have all the answers.”

The 64-year-old intends to run an open administration. He wants to be visible so his 500-plus employees are comfortable giving him recommendations.

“Our administration needs to be coming in on nights to meet with correction officers and deputies,” he said. “We need to be out at the road patrols saying hello. We need to encourage our staff to step up and be men and women for others. It is more than just making an arrest; we have to look at the big picture.”

Not playing cops and robbers

Tharp said he wasn’t thinking about the big picture, let alone law enforcement, when he was growing up in West Virginia. He actually wanted to be a farmer.

“My dad died when I was super young, so young I didn’t even know him, and there were farmers who I liked and idolized,” Tharp said.

His dreams shifted when his mother, a registered nurse, moved the family to Toledo. They lived next to Libbey High School, where Tharp played football and wrestled.

It was at Libbey that he started to think about law enforcement. He had friends who had older brothers in the career; however, his mother couldn’t afford college raising four children, and the GI Bill ended up paying for his three degrees.

Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp

“Everything I did in the military was so disciplined and everything in Vietnam was so violent,” he said. “As a combat medic, you are with the troops and taking fire at the same time they are taking fire. It is being there for them and not leaving.”

Tharp plans to apply some of those wartime lessons to being sheriff.

“The sheriff needs to be engaged, the sheriff needs to be present and stepping forward and making recommendations. And if something is going the wrong way, the sheriff must, must straighten it back up.”

When he returned from Vietnam, his friends said, “You need to find Jim Telb because he is a cop and drug agent.”

Tharp took Telb’s law enforcement technology program at UT, while working nights at a factory. He started at the Toledo Police Department (TPD) in 1972 with many of his years spent on the drug unit and homicide squad.

Oregon Police Chief Mike Navarre worked with Tharp back then. Navarre became TPD chief in 1998, one year after Tharp left to work at the sheriff’s office.

“John was always an excellent investigator. He was well-liked by his colleagues because he was helpful,” Navarre said. “He has a lot of people skills. I think that is what is going to help him succeed as the sheriff.”

Tharp is respected for his experience and collaborative nature as well.

“I have nothing but great things to say about John and we will be working on collaborative things in the future as he takes the office of sheriff,” said Toledo Police Chief Derrick Diggs.

One of Tharp’s greatest partnerships was with the local schools back in the mid ’80s and early ’90s. For nine months, he served as a consultant to Toledo Public Schools. A grant paid for him to make recommendations on how to safeguard the school from drugs and gang activities.

When the grant ended, the schools wanted him to continue. It was at this time that TPD came up with the idea of school resource officers. Tharp had to convince some school administrators that it was a good idea. Back then, cops in schools were taboo.

“If I had my choice, I would have an officer in every school and it wouldn’t have to be paid for by the school system,” Tharp said. “It is something we should be doing. Law enforcement agents need to be around schools in the morning and around 3 p.m. That is when crimes are happening that involve young kids.”

Becoming sheriff

In 1997, Tharp had finished his master’s and had 25 years in at TPD when Telb asked about his retirement plans. Tharp thought he might teach, “unless you have something for me,” he joked.

Telb told him there would be an opening in 60 days.

Tharp became a major in the sheriff’s office, and continued mentoring youth, even working with young people who were skipping school, per principals’ requests.

“I would rouse them out of bed and take them to school. Their guardians had no problems with me coming into the house.”

The deputies also adopted Ella P. Stewart Academy.

“We will read to the younger ones; we will do anything that we need to do to make life better for them,” Tharp said. “If they are going to the library and don’t have enough money for busing, we will escort them to the library.”

Teresa Quinn, principal at Stewart Academy, appreciates Tharp’s support, in particular providing deputies at dismissal. Plus, the students love the new sheriff.

“We were just having a conversation about having a small assembly with him and the children,” Quinn said.

Phyllis “Sam” Tharp said her husband is passionate and dedicated. She remembers when he coached underprivileged students. The only requirement was that the truant students go to school.

The whole family — sons John and Andrew and daughter Kati — supported his bid for sheriff, she said. And the family is growing as Tharp is about to become a first-time grandfather in the same month he became sheriff.

“It just seemed like a natural flow,” Tharp said. “It wasn’t anything that I had planned. I didn’t come here to be a sheriff.

“I came here to work within the community. I came here to do whatever I could do to help others. I came here to help Sheriff Telb.”

That’s not to say he minded running unopposed.

“Probably no one else wanted the job,” he said with a chuckle.

But he wanted it, and he is tackling one of his biggest challenges already — the budget.

“One thing we started already, just a couple of days ago, was job sharing,” Tharp said. We have to reallocate our manpower to put [employees] where we need them at the busy times. If they are slow at a particular time, they need to be moved and need to be placed in a different location.”

Pat Mangold, president of UAW Local 3056, which represents employees of the sheriff’s department, said employees are excited about the new sheriff. They are looking forward to the implementation of an efficiency analysis. The study addresses different ways to manage inmates’ behavior and much-needed maintenance issues at the aging Lucas County jails.

“We think there are going to be some positive changes,” Mangold said.

Another of those changes could be a renewed battle on gang activity, a growing problem in the county. Fortunately, Tharp has experience from serving on a TPD gang task force.

“We would bust up the gangs, arrest them, book them and let them know we were there. We were taking guns off the street. We were taking murderers off the street,” he said.

But due to budget constraints, the task force folded, and the

gangs reappeared.

“We have to have the manpower to address it,” Tharp said. “I am still in the old-school way of thinking, we have to get out there with the gang members, interface with the gang members and work with the ones who we can get out of gangs.”

Yet for those gang members who continue to commit crimes, the tough guy Tharp re-emerges. Some people deserve to be put away, he said.

“We have to go after them, we have to arrest them, we have to book them. We can’t let them slide. We have to be aggressive.”

D. Michael Collins: Rainy days and Mondays

The tornado siren goes off and if you are like many Toledo-area residents, you’ll head to the basement or an interior room while awaiting more details on the storm. If you are one of the thousands of area residents who live in a manufactured home park, the tornado warning advises you to leave your home and take immediate shelter.

Where do you seek shelter?

The United States has the highest occurrence of tornadoes in the world, with more than 800 tornadoes reported each year. In Ohio, more than 200 tornadoes have been reported during the past decade.

In 2010, I was first approached by residents of a manufactured home park and asked that question. It is one I have asked members of the Mayor Mike Bell administration in 2010, in 2011 and again in 2012. Receiving no response as to what is the suggested safety plan for the residents of nearly 30 manufactured home parks in Toledo, as chair of Public Safety, Law & Criminal Justice, I held a hearing on Monday, April 23.

Residents of manufactured homes are at an increased risk during severe weather. In 2005, Harold Brooks, a National Weather Service research meteorologist, said mobile home residents are between 15 and 20 percent more likely to die in a tornado than people living in wood-frame houses.

The purpose of the hearing was to discover if the City of Toledo had a plan for residents of manufactured home parks that included suggested shelters; Lucas County Emergency Management Services and the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office were also invited to the hearing.

None of the Toledo safety forces administrators invited to the hearing chose to attend. Major John Tharp of the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office and Joe Walter of Lucas County Emergency Management Service did attend.

D. Michael Collins

Shirley Green, safety director for the City of Toledo, stated in an April 20 email that neither she, Fire and Rescue Chief Luis Santiago nor Police Chief Derrick Diggs would attend the April 23 hearing, “As a matter of protocol concerning tornado events, we (TPD and TFRD) continue to implement and follow the process established by the Lucas County Emergency Operations Plan.”

On April 21, I requested a copy of that process be provided prior to the hearing. It was not provided.

Manufactured home parks are regulated by the state, which means it would be difficult for Toledo to regulate what type of safe shelters must be provided. While states like Minnesota require manufactured home parks to have storm shelters, Ohio does not.

Discussions could take place about what funding options exist. At least two manufactured home parks in other parts of Ohio received FEMA funding for storm shelters.

Spending taxpayer dollars on shelters was not a suggestion, nor is it something I advocate. I do support Councilman Rob Ludeman’s suggestion of exploring what type of tax incentives or insurance incentives exist for owners of manufactured home parks who provide shelters.

I wanted to stress the public information aspect and encourage residents to know weather terminology. According to Impact Forecasting:

O A tornado watch is issued when meteorologists believe conditions are favorable for the formation of severe weather and tornadoes. At this time you should be going over your tornado safety rules and keeping abreast of the weather conditions via television, radio or NOAA radio.

O A tornado warning is issued when a tornado has been spotted or weather radar indicates a developing tornado. When a tornado warning is issued, head to a tornado-safe place, such as a basement or interior room.

Possible safe shelter locations exist in our community for residents of manufactured homes and for others in our community who are not at home or who live in a home they feel is not safe during a tornado. However, if the Public Safety administration in Toledo does not work with Lucas County and the community to explore how we come up with those safe shelter locations and to publicize what options our residents have when severe weather threatens — the question asked two years ago will keep being asked.

“There’s a tornado coming — where do I seek safe shelter?”

D. Michael Collins is the Toledo City Councilman for District 2 and the chair of Council’s Public Safety, Law & Criminal Justice committee. Call him at (419) 245-1050, email him at dmichael.collins@toledo.oh.gov or visit Facebook at www.facebook.com/ToledoDistrict2.

Forum aims to open dialog to improve police, youth relationship

Three area police chiefs, Toledo youth and University of Toledo students came together to discuss ways to improve the relationship between badge-holders and young people April 3.

The “Enhancing Relations Between Toledo Youth and Law Enforcement” forum was organized by Lorna Gonsalves, a professor for an “Understanding Racism” class for criminal justice students at UT. Gonsalves wanted her students to get involved in a community action project, and throughout her work around the world, she said she noticed tenuous relations between police and youth.

“You are our most precious resource and really it’s in your hands where our future lies,” Gonsalves told the youth in the crowd of about 100.

“Many times when we deal with things on the street, we deal with things in a certain structure and a certain way,” Diggs said of police, adding that it can be difficult for youth and police to understand one another.

“One of the things I hear from youth all the time is they don’t trust police,” he said.

Newton recommended education and communication as ways to cure the “bad blood” between the groups, a sentiment Navarre echoed.

“The solution is communication and education and we can educate each other by communicating with each other,” he said.

Honesty in dealing with police is also key, Navarre said. “Police officers are lied to every single day of the week … their most difficult task is trying to discern who is telling the truth,” he said.

Shakyra Diaz, the policy director from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, also addressed the crowd. Diaz brought cards informing people how to behave if stopped by police and a large part of the forum was suggesting ways to potentially distribute the cards to area youth.

Diaz reminded adults of their roles in children’s lives. “We lose sight of how important we are and our roles as adults,” she said, adding that while it takes a village to raise a child, “it takes a community to fail a child” as well.

Mutual understanding is also crucial.

“It’s important for young people to understand the work of a police officer can be difficult and dangerous,” Diaz said, adding, “It’s also important for police officers to understand that going through the teen years is very difficult.”

She praised the chiefs’ involvement with the forum and said, “Their presence is saying a lot, but continued dialogue is important.”

After the speeches, the crowd broke into groups to come up with suggestions on distributing the cards and improving relations.

“Every time a police officer stops someone, there’s panic,” said Wayne Pirtle, a Woodward High School senior and vice president of the school’s Student African American Brotherhood chapter. Most of the teens in the small group of about 15 had been stopped by police before.

Pirtle suggested police meeting with students in plain clothes to ease tensions, talk and distribute the cards. He also advocated cooperating when stopped by police.

Brother Washington Muhammad, group moderator and program coordinator for Self-Expression Teen Theater, urged police to take some of the blame for the tension between youth and authority.

“Accepting responsibility doesn’t make you a bad guy; accepting responsibility makes you a leader,” he said.

The groups then reconvened to share the suggestions, which will be forwarded to the police chiefs and school officials.

In addition to mutual respect, many of the suggestions centered on meeting police in casual settings designed to help kids see the “human” aspects of the officers. To help personalize the present chiefs, Gonsalves organized a brief guessing game of some of the chiefs’ favorite things. (Navarre enjoys T-bone steak and Newton’s favorite actress is Winona Ryder, which elicited several “who?”s from the youth.)

Gonsalves said she thinks a summertime picnic between youth and plainly clothed officers is in order. A forum discussing specific anecdotes of youth/police relations is also being planned.

“I could see many of the young people were burning to talk,” she said.

New police chief takes office

As Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre prepares for retirement and Deputy Chief Derrick Diggs gets ready to take over, the former classmates expressed mixed emotions about the power change.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet, but I am excited. But, it hasn’t hit me yet,” said Diggs, who was in the same police class as Navarre and also joined TPD the same day, July 12, 1977. Diggs will be Toledo’s first African-American chief.

“My feelings are mixed. This has pretty much been my home-away-from-home for the last 34 years so it will be tough leaving this building for the last time when I close this door and walk down that hallway,” said Navarre, who is the third-longest serving chief in Toledo’s history at 13 years of service.

Navarre, 56, became chief in May 1998. During his tenure, Chief Navarre started the Retired Senior Volunteers on Patrol program in 2000, and the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies accredited the police department in 2003.

He grew up in a police family—his father James was a detective, who retired as homicide captain. Navarre decided to take the civil service test when his brother Daniel did. At the time, Navarre was doing manual labor for Pepsi-Cola.

“We knew it was very competitive, very difficult. Literally, a 1,000 people take that test and there’s only a handful of jobs,” Navarre said. Although, he hadn’t had much previous ambition to become a police officer, Navarre knew it was right for him after his first day.

“I was hooked. I knew this was what I was going to do the rest of my life,” he recalled. Daniel retired from TPD as a detective last year.

Diggs said he became a police officer because of a “childhood ambition.” He attended Adrian College on a football scholarship, graduating in 1977 and received his master’s degree in public administration from the University of Toledo in 1999. Despite his ambition and education, Diggs said that he didn’t foresee himself becoming chief.

Mike Navarre, left, and Derrick Diggs

“When I joined the police department I had no vision of ever becoming chief. I had no vision of really getting to the upper-command ranks. My whole thing was to be a cop and be on the street and go after bad guys. That’s what I wanted to do and what I liked to do,” Diggs said.

The 56-year-old has worked in several departments over his career, including Operations Division, Community Affairs, Public Affairs, Investigative Services Division and Special Enforcement Division, according to a news release.

“It’s easier probably to tell the places I didn’t work than the assignments I did have,” Diggs laughed.

Still, the responsibilities keep coming as Navarre has been assigning him chief duties on a gradual basis since January, Diggs said.

At a news conference in September, Mayor Mike Bell emphasized that Navarre is “not being booted out. He’s being timed out” and that a retirement date was set eight years ago.

Diggs said no retirement date has been set yet for him.

Once he retires, Navarre said he has remodeling plans and will travel to Florida to visit his father and daughter.

“I haven’t taken a lot of vacation in the last few years and there’s a lot of reasons for that. It seems every time I want to take a vacation, something would happen,” Navarre said. He also noted that he would likely look for another job, potentially in business.

“At some point, I’m going to have to find something to do with my life because I think I’m too young to not do that,” Navarre said, adding, “I’ve always had an interest in the business side. Business is what keeps communities thriving, keeps people employed. That’s the capitalist society we live in.”

Retirement will also leave more time to spend with his wife, Julie, and their four adult children, including Assistant Lucas County Prosecutor Lindsay Navarre. Diggs also has a grown son, who he raised as a single parent.

“At the time he was young, I was working in narcotics, undercover work, lots of hours and stuff and somehow we did it. Sometimes, I think back and I don’t know how it happened. How I was able to get him to school on time, go to all his football games, cross county meets, lacrosse games,” Diggs said.

During their tenures, Navarre and Diggs have seen many changes, both positive and negative.

“When I took over as chief in 1998, we had I believe, 730 officers. Today we’re down to 550. The number’s going to continue to decline before that next class graduates,” Navarre said.

Diggs said that a class of six officers was hired this September. “We put them through an accelerated police class to get them out on the streets as soon as we can because of the shortage of manpower,” he said, adding that he expects 44 more to be hired in November with an expected May graduation. If the budget allows, another additional 50 officers will be hired before then.

“Our problem is we’re losing officers faster than we can hire them, train them and put them on the street because of the lack of hiring that’s been done in previous years. Now we’re trying to catch up and it’s very, very difficult, and the budget is working against us as well,” Diggs said.

Another difficult time for Navarre was in early 2007 when Detective Keith Dressel was shot and killed while on the job. Navarre called it “difficult for me as a chief, very difficult for the department. [It] presented many challenges, dealing with arrest and prosecution and more importantly, dealing with the loss.”

That is really a true test of your leadership skills. I don’t know if I passed the test. I’d like to think I did.”

2006 also brought a challenge—a demotion from former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. Navarre spent about five and a half months as interim executive director of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council before Finkbeiner asked him to return when the other candidate didn’t work out. “Obviously, he didn’t have any cause, he just wanted someone else there. He was coming in as a new mayor and he wanted to come in with a new cast of leaders. I accepted that,” Navarre said.

Navarre said he returned because “I enjoyed the job (as chief). I didn’t particularly like what I was doing. I was bored. I wasn’t challenged. And coming back gave me some sense of vindication.”

Despite their issues, Navarre thanked Finkbeiner for appointing him at the news conference announcing his retirement. Finkbeiner told the Toledo Free Press, “He (Navarre) had a gift of handing the extremely tense and dramatic times, the death of Keith Dressel a few years ago, reductions in manpower in the department, sometimes significant youth-related challenges to the police department with a great deal of coolness and confidence.”

One of Navarre’s major achievements stemmed from having less manpower—he implemented photo-enforcement throughout the city in 2000, making Toledo one of the first Midwestern cities with the technology.

“You’re going to see a greater reliance on video technology that’s going to fill that void that’s been left by decreasing tax bases, where police departments can’t have the number of officers that they once did. We’re a perfect example,” Navarre said.

Technology played an important role in Navarre’s legacy. After 9/11, Navarre, Sheriff James Telb and former Fire Chief Bell worked together to create a county-wide emergency radio system. Also, although the police department didn’t transition to a paperless office during Navarre’s tenure, he said he believes it could happen within in the next year.

Bell noted Navarre’s technological achievements at the news conference. “We’ve got a chief that has served our city for 34 years and he’s just been unbelievable. As a police officer and as a police chief, he brought a lot of new technology in, really calmed a lot of waters and he’s done it with full integrity,” Bell said.

As the days before Oct. 22 when he officially becomes chief dwindle, Diggs is reluctant to share future plans as Navarre is still in charge.

“We still have a chief who’s still running the department and for lack of a better term, we have a chief-in-waiting, like some of the NFL teams are doing. You’ve got the head coach and the head coach in-waiting.”

However, Diggs did note at the news conference that his plan will be “very ambitious and very bold” and he told the Toledo Free Press that community outreach will be one of his focuses.

“We can only have so many police officers on the street and there’s so much demand out there. But we also to have the citizens support us and work with us and give us information and believe in what we’re doing if we’re going to make the name for this community safe,” Diggs said.

When asked if he had any departing advice for the new chief, Navarre said, ““He needs to be open, listen to people. There’s a lot diff opinions out there. You can’t make everyone happy. Be fair. Be consistent.”

Still Navarre won’t be too far. “I’m still gonna have his cell phone. There’s going to be times, I’m still going call him,” Diggs said.

Navarre to retire

Chief Mike Navarre of the Toledo Police Department announced his retirement Sept. 15 after 13 years of service as the chief and more than 30 years as an officer. Mayor Mike Bell appointed Asst. Chief Derrick Diggs to replace him, starting Oct. 21.

“This is a sad day and a great day at the same time,” Bell said at a news conference.

Chief Navarre said of his tenure, “This job has been very interesting, never boring.” He thanked former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner for appointing him in 1998 and also expressed gratitude for his police officers and members of staff.

He thanked his family, wife Julie and their four children, saying, “They really had to sacrifice over the years. There’s always that uncertainty when they [police] do that eight hour shift. Are they gonna come home?”

Although Navarre insisted that the day was really about Diggs, Diggs said the same of Navarre. Both Navarre and Diggs joined the department in 1977. The two first met in a boxing session when they were in police academy and Navarre joked that he had won.

“It’s his day and we’ll let him tell the story he wants to tell,” Diggs joked. He declined to reveal his new agenda, but did say, “There are plans in place. They are very ambitious and very bold.”

Bell emphasized that Navarre was “not being booted out. He’s being timed out.” Navarre said he agreed on his retirement date eight years ago.

“I’m ready to move on. I think the department’s ready to move on,” Navarre said. He said he will devote the next five weeks to a smooth transition for Diggs. After the transition, he plans to remodel his house and spend more time in Florida with his family.

“You were our guy,” Lucas County Sheriff James Telb said. “It didn’t take long before you were flying by yourself.” A former teacher to Navarre, Telb credited Navarre with helping install the countywide communication system for area safety officials, what he called, “absolutely the best in the nation.”